I have a brand new slingshot board there is a 2mm gap on every fin away from the board. I contacted Slingshot just to see if this was okay or if they could tell me if there was a problem. I was not looking to get anything free or anything like that just wanted a little help. After this email I called and spoke to the same Rep and he basically told me flat out he did not want to deal with this issue. Here is the email response I received.

Update for Case - "slingshot fins"
Hey Greg,

This is such a small issue I am just going to have to ask you to buy some new fins or just deal with the tiny gap man. I'm not trying to be a d**k, I just think this is something you have to figure out on your own. It's a tiny gap on 1 fin. Good luck sir!

Man, I just bought a Slingshot and would have though twice after reading that. Sounds like they have a child handling customer service from a keyboard. They should be happy you purchased from them and although it may be a little or non-issue it was not to the consumer so it should be addressed with some respect. That type of negative press will do some damage.

That is horrible. I called them the other day when I was on the hunt for a new board and the guy seemed pretty happy to answer all my questions, but this is unacceptable. It's the after purchase customer service that matters most.

That is horrible. I called them the other day when I was on the hunt for a new board and the guy seemed pretty happy to answer all my questions, but this is unacceptable. It's the after purchase customer service that matters most.

Glad I went with a HYPERLITE!!!!!!!!

Hyperlite has been good to our family for many years now! Customer service has always been helpful, in the least, polite.

this is unfortunate to hear.
seems this is the second customer issue brought up on these forums in just a month or two.
only heard excellent things about SS customer service/support from their debut up till now.
Personally i have only had stellar experiences.
There used to be a guy named Kyle Chinn that was doing the support for the first 3 years or so that was just AWESOME... but this has to be a different Kyle because the original guy, as far as i know, has not been working for slingshot for 2 years or more.

At first i was a little unclear as to where this gap was in relation to the board and the fin, like if there was an un-even rocker bend issue. but it sounds like the bolting holes were not drilled deep enough in the fin maybe from the forum responses above. If Kyle was thinking along these same lines as me, then he should have tried to clarify the situation first to identify the exact concern... not that it would have justified a response like above later in any case.

As for WASHERS. I would actually recommend to anyone to use large diameter nylon washers for their fin bolts (I have 3/4" washers on mine). I use them to spread out the weight of the bolt across the top surface of the board to protect it from dimpling in. I have seen a few boards where the user maybe has overtightened their fin bolts and there are miner dimples in the board. the dimples are probably not a big deal, but if they can be nearly prevented entirely with $1-2 worth of nylon then why not.

PM from Hyperlite Rep. The guy is trying to help me I dont even ride a Hyperlite any more. SS take notes

Hey Greg, Jesse from HyperLite.I had talked to you a while back on W/W about getting some fins for your board. I dropped an bag of nylon washers in the mail to the same address as I did those fins. Not positive on Slingshot's screw specs but these should fit. Let me know!! Jesse.

Hey Greg, Jesse from HyperLite.I had talked to you a while back on W/W about getting some fins for your board. I dropped an bag of nylon washers in the mail to the same address as I did those fins. Not positive on Slingshot's screw specs but these should fit. Let me know!! Jesse.

Hey Greg, Jesse from HyperLite.I had talked to you a while back on W/W about getting some fins for your board. I dropped an bag of nylon washers in the mail to the same address as I did those fins. Not positive on Slingshot's screw specs but these should fit. Let me know!! Jesse.

That's the same guy that's helped me in the past! Glad to know he's still at it! It was because of him that I decided to get my wife a new board and of course it was... Hyperlite!

I worked with the same guy on my broken hooke and got f-ed over. I told them I am going back to Ronix... I have dealt with Ronix customer service in the past and they are great people willing to help with just about anything. We don't have room in this sport for people to treat their customers like that.

Yeah, I've had issues too. I had a thumbscrew they sent me with my response and it cracked the first day I used it. I asked if they could send me the metal hardware that they advertise in pictures etc and they linked me to a webpage where I could buy 4 pieces of binding hardware for $32. I ended up figuring it out on my own at home depot for much less $$, meanwhile loosing much of my stoke for the brand.

Man, u must've got the one bad employee. I had a great experience with them. But, u can't say "not tryin to be a dick" without automatically being one. That's absolutely unacceptable. I would go over his head to his supervisor and report the issue. There's no room for this in our sport.

the hyperlite fin bolts (#10 size) will be too narrow for the slingshot (1/4") but of course the washers will be helpful and maybe there are spacers that might work to make the smaller hyperlite bolt wider and work on the slingshot.

also hyperlite fins are flat based and the fins won't fit as flush to the board from tip to tail of the fin, but this won't be a huge deal either if you can manage figuring out how to attach hyperlite fins to a slingshot. (man it really sucks how fins are not universal from brand to brand, but that is an entirely different matter...)

the older slingshot boards however did use 10 bolts and they had issues with the fins stripping out in 2007-08. i used some hyperlite fins until the new fins and bolts came out instead and it was fine.

I think it is kool that there are wake affiliates that cruze these forums, be it store owners, reps, and even pro riders.
i know hyperlite has a pretty good representation on here from Greg N. to Murray on a few occasions
that was something that used to make kyle chinn so awesome a few years back

I'd call Kyle and chat... 509-427-4950 X353. He is a reasonable guy. I was as pissed as anyone about Slingshot's customer service until I discovered that my own dealer was completely misrepresenting Slingshots position and was basically trying to screw me. The dealer got a credit from SS for my bindings under warranty and then told me the bindings were not warrantable (pe SS) so I couldn't get a refund. Nice huh?

I need to also clear up something. On a couple previous threads I had indicated Slingshot said my KTV bindings were not warrantable after the liners started coming apart after 2 or 3 trips to the lake. I was being told this by a dealer which was not true. Slingshot indicated they gave the dealer credit on the bindings under warranty the same day they sent in the pictures.

I personally may not worry about a 2mm gap on the fins but like I have said previously... we aren't paying peanuts for these set-ups. For a $400 board and $400 bindings we should be able ride without having to rig-up something or repair the bindings with Shoe Goo to hold the liners in the bindings. I don't get it. I am pretty happy about switching to 2012 Hyperlite Union with 2012 System bindings. Every wake company is going to have product issues eventually- I get that. It is how they handle and treat their customers when it happens. I had two Hyperlite boards delaminate in back to back years and the boards were replaced no questions asked. They could have said "it is just cosmetic- it doesn't change the performance, deal with it" but they didn't. I didn't think twice about dropping cash on a new Hyperlite set-up because they stand by their products.

Most of us are probably reasonable people. If I buy a set of $400 bindings, ride them for 12 months several times a week and at the end of the 12 months they start to come apart I get that... I rode the hell out of them and wear and tear happens. No problem. Time to pay for some new bindings for 2013. But, when the liners fall out after 2 trips to the cable park and show no indication or surviving a month much less 12 months it is obviously an "issue" in my book.

Sorry for the rant! I miss the days when I bought a new set-up every year, rode it the entire year without a single issue, then sold it and someone else enjoyed it for years after that. I sold my 2001 Hyperlite Premier with 2001 HL Highbacks to a friend for $50 and it is still going strong.

Have had great experiences as well, but my dealer was as good as it gets (fort Fremont WI).

Just curious if the KTV liner issues are the reason why they didn't keep them in the lineup for '13. I don't ride cable much but one day at owc one of their riders was explaining why he loved them. He simply preferred swimming barefoot, and the fit of the boot of course.

KTVs are AWESOME. Aside from the liner issue, I have a new pair waiting for me at the shop under warranty

They are nice bindings. I enjoyed riding them. My only problem was that when the liners came apart the heel padding also came undone which made them a bit of a pain in the a$$ to put on.

I was told by a Slingshot employee that there was some bad glue used in one batch of KTVs and there wasn't a way to tell batch from batch so it was just a numbers game. They would replace them under warranty but the replacements may have the same issue because they could of came from the same batch. This is what happened to me. My liners came apart twice on two different sets of bindings.

You could probably just deal with it but for $400 you shouldn't have to deal with it IMO.